ABSTRACT
In the 1890s, French officials in colonized Indochina sought to monopolize and modernize opium production, thus far concentrated in Chinese hands. This was expected to create one of the principal “beasts of burden” for the colonial tax base. The French portrayed modern opium as a harmless relaxant, which could even prove to be a potent weapon in fighting alcoholism as the primary social ill in the French military. Yet when international opinion turned decisively against opium in the 1910s, the French were left in awkward situation: while preaching the virtues of prohibition at international conferences, the French relied on tax revenue from state-owned opium factories in Indochina. This move towards prohibition forced Frenchmen to reevaluate the qualities of opiates along racial lines. Opium was redefined as a harmful drug for Europeans, while Asians were seen as having grown accustomed to drug over centuries of habitual use. The French could then continue manufacturing and taxing opiates for Indochinese consumption, while restricting its use among Europeans, seemingly complying with international opium congresses. This case study reveals how technology, diplomacy, and rhetorics of modernization shaped, and then changed the qualities and practices of opium smoking, enacting colonial racial taxonomies in the process.
